Naxals not blocking NREGA farm productivity schemes: Study

New Delhi: The programmes taken up under the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which increase
agriculture productivity in the rural areas, are not being
"blocked" by the Naxalites, a study has claimed.

Council for Social Development (CSD), a study group of
social workers and social scientists, also noted in its draft
report that "as a combined result of NREGA and Naxalites`
pressure, contractors are paying higher wages to the manual
workers (in the areas hit by left-wing extremism)".
The Naxalites have been blocking road construction but
not the other kinds of permissible works under NREGA, CSD
claimed in its report. The study had been jointly sponsored by
the Rural Development Ministry and UNDP.

"Especially, land development works on the lands owned
by scheduled castes and scheduled tribes....In short, those
works which increase agricultural productivity of the rural
poor are not blocked by Naxalites," it added.
The CSD conducted the study in tribal-dominated and
Naxal-affected areas in Chattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and
Andhra Pradesh on implementation of NREGA and its impact
there.

Sources in the ministry said that CSD was given the task
to conduct a study in Naxal-affected areas after Congress
leader Rahul Gandhi had in one of the meetings of the ministry
in October last year sought to know whether any study was
conducted on the impact on NREGA.